Alice Steinbach · 295 pages
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“I suspected, however, that I wasn't homesick for anything I would find at home when I returned. The longing was for what I wouldn't find: the past and all the people and places there were lost to me.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“And who's to say that just because something lasts only a short time, it has little value?”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“It is one of the strongest bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities...How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures...It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Freedom has its dangers as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off we'll be.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“It used to surprise me, the intensity with which I still remembered these distant memories. But when I entered my fifties...I understood their enduring clarity....In the end, what adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“What if more of life could be like that? Like the last slow dance, where, to echo T.S. Eliot, a lifetime burns in every moment.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“I'm a woman in search on an adventure”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“In many ways I was an independent woman. For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“As I set out each day, I felt like a young child again. One who hadn't yet learned the rules of manmade time; the rules of clocks and calendars, of weekdays and weekends. Except the primitive markers of day and night, time lay ahead of me in a continuous, undefined mass.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“What adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Maybe it was I who needed to learn how to be quiet instead of cluttering the moment with too many words.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“I had forgotten how wonderful it is to stand on a bridge and catch the scent of rain in the air. I had forgotten how much I need to be a part of water, wind, sky.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“At first the lives of women frightened me. They seemed so fragile, so dependent on fathers and husbands and brothers and lovers. Gradually, though, I noticed how supple their lives were beneath the surface. I saw, too, that sooner or later, by choice or by chance most women faced the task of adapting to a future on their own. When at my most optimistic, I thought of it as independence, in darker moods, as survival. Either way, women had to do it.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Life is like that I thought, as I turned the corner to my building. Freedom has its danger as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off will be.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“I suppose that, after the passion of love, water rights have caused more trouble than anything else to the human species.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“How to stop rushing from place to place, always looking ahead to the next thing while the moment in front of me slipped away unnoticed.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“By then I'd knocked around enough to know that, in the end, what adds up to a life is nothing more than the accumulation of small daily moments.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“And like any group thrown together in a strange situation, we developed the sort of we're-in-this-together, for-better-or-for-worse camaraderie that I found appealingly familiar. It was something I missed, the sense of sharing those small, daily experiences that, as far as I can tell, are really what life boils down to.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Things happen, I thought, and we respond. That's what it all comes down to. To believe anything else, as far as I could tell, was simply an illusion.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules- spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family- which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“The fun-seekers, I noted, were spontaneous and flexible. They approached each day and each situation with a willingness to ride whatever wave came along, just for the experience of it. The complainers, on the other hand, would only catch a wave if it was exactly to their liking. Anything else drew loud protestations about how it was not what they expected.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“The sun came out. It filtered down through the leaves, creating a playful pattern of light and shade that danced before my eyes. The air smelled of lilies of the valley. As I walked beneath the canopy of trees, wrapped in the delicate fragrance, caution fell away. It didn't matter that I had no idea which street led to the place de Tertre or to my Métro stop. Destination no longer ruled. My only map was that of free association: I would follow each street only as long as it interested me and then, on a whim, choose a new direction.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“..., looking at the silent buildings, each one with a story to tell.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“After all, the word “travel” comes from the Latin “trepalium.” Which, loosely translated, means “instrument of torture.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“The writer ended with a line from Eudora Welty: “All serious daring starts from within.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“What is the one emotion that you would like to feel for the rest of your life?”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“Most of us, I suppose, have had at one time or another the impulse to leave behind our daily routines and responsibilities and seek out, temporarily, a new life.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
“I guess I'm too selfish to travel well with other people," I told Anne later.”
― Alice Steinbach, quote from Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
Alice Steinbach
Born place: Baltimore, The United States
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“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“The main thing was to know the world, every twenty-five years or so, back for a couple hundred years, and if you had that info handy, always there under your belt, then you could figure out the gaps.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“If I flip a coin, what are the chances I'll get head?”
― J.B. Salsbury, quote from Fighting for Flight
“Yo me había dado por vencida. He perdido toda esperanza para mí. Luego te conocí. Tú me hiciste enamorarme de ti, y tú me enseñaste que había una razón para luchar. Tú tuviste la suficiente esperanza para los dos y , si no fuera por ti, yo no estaría aquí hoy".”
― Sandi Lynn, quote from Forever Us
“Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”
There was no point in saying I didn’t really know. I said “Yes.”
“Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?” The pollywogs were those little creatures we had seen under the microscope.
I said, “Yes, he made everything.”
She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”
“Sure thing,” I said. “Mister God loves everything.”
“Oh,” she said. “well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?” Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God, we don’t know about?”
“Well then,” she continued, “if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?”
I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they? I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?”
She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on.
“Fynn, Mister God doesn’t love us.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy, but Bossy don’t love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don’t love me. I love you Fynn, and you love me, don’t you?”
I tightened my arm about her.
“You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truly but he don’t love me.”
It sounded to me like a death knell. “Damn and blast,” I thought. “Why does this have to happen to people? Now she’s lost everything.” But I was wrong.
She had got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping stone.
“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its millions of times bigger.”
I must have made some movement or noise, for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. The she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut from the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.
“Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different. Mister God ain’t like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.”
It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love, and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.
“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different because he can finish things and we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?”
― Fynn, quote from Mister God, This is Anna
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